


Whitewash

by Misha (Mishamcm)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark Sam Winchester, Dubious Consent, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-02-23 03:07:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23738041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mishamcm/pseuds/Misha
Summary: Sam’s going to get Dean out of hell, no matter what it takes.





	Whitewash

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: This story takes place during the summer between seasons 3 and 4, when Dean is in hell. It was plotted back then, before season 4 aired, and is not necessarily consistent with anything in season 4 onwards.
> 
> Fan art for this story may be found here:   
> https://www.daz3d.com/forums/uploads/FileUpload/8b/b52771185fa1a5e239c89ac4cc4fc4.jpg

  
Chapter 1

The wind howled, not like a wild animal, more like a soul being tortured. The rain was determined to come from all directions at once. Periodic flashes of lightning illuminated Monomoy Island, but it seemed just as featureless in the light as it had in the dark.

Bobby Singer attempted to turtle himself deeper inside his coat, knowing full well it wouldn’t help. “Goddamn cursed buildings always gotta put on a show.”

It seemed like it had taken forever to track down this island, even though he knew full well it was barely a fortnight. “Island. Right. Half the time it ain’t even that.”

Monomoy Island’s topography was always changing, victim of storms over the years. One storm would wash away the connection to Cape Cod, another would reconnect it; one would split it in half, another would join it together again.

It used to have a town, by the name of Whitewash Village. In the early 1700’s there was a tavern for sailors, who apparently weren’t superstitious or smart enough to avoid a place named Wreck Cove. A century later it had grown to 200 residents. It even had its own schoolhouse – at one point it had 16 students – prophetically named Public School #13.

Then a hurricane in 1860 washed away the Powder Hole, the deep harbor that had brought all those fishermen to the island, and in the blink of an eye it was deserted. People attempted to rebuild it, but by 1876 it was abandoned. Pretty much all that was left of the village now was the lighthouse, and that hadn’t been used since the 1920’s. The rest had been whitewashed, all right, swept clean away by the storms.

At least, that’s the official story. Seems that one of the teachers, a man named Abel Kinkaid, had an affair with one of his students. Kinkaid was fired, and in response put a curse on the schoolhouse and on the village. Legend has it that Public School #13 still exists, hidden away on the island. Kinkaid made it his own occult library, and they say you can sometimes see it if you’re willing to look. 

“But only during a blasted storm.”

Bobby just hoped the ritual he had performed the day before would work. Obviously couldn’t do it now – try to light a candle and the wind would bludgeon you with the candlestick. Bobby recited the incantation and waited.

And there it was, Public School #13. It seemed pretty ornate for a little red schoolhouse, but apparently it had grown over the years. “To match the size of Kinkaid’s ego.”

Bobby marched up the stone steps and tried the door. Wouldn’t open, of course. It would be ridiculous to think anyone inside could hear the knocker.

Bobby shrugged. “We passed ridiculous days ago.” He knocked.

“Sam? I know you’re in there. Just want to talk.”

No answer, naturally. Not that he would have been able to hear Sam over the storm. Bobby got out his lockpicks. Not the regular ones. The ones for special locks.

Then he heard it, in his head more than in his ears. “Go away, Bobby.”

He set to work on the lock. It was stubborn, but Bobby invented stubborn. When the last tumbler finally clicked, Bobby nearly lost his balance as the door swung open of its own accord.

The room was lit by a few candles, but there seemed to be a desk lamp on the heavy wooden table. “And there ain’t never been electricity on Monomoy Island.” No sign of a generator – in fact, the lamp didn’t even have a power cord. The light from the lamp illuminated stacks of books. Only one book was opened – the one in Sam’s hand.

“This doesn’t concern you, Bobby. Go away.”

“Like hell it doesn’t. Sam, the path you’re on doesn’t lead anywhere good. You know it, I know it. Let’s figure it out.”

Sam turned his head. The glint of yellow in his eyes broke Bobby’s heart. “I said go away.”

And he was carried by the wind, landing on his back on the muddy path outside the schoolhouse as the door swung closed.

“Dammit, I’m too old for this.”

He gathered up his tools and set to work on the door again.

“Go home, Bobby.”

And he was home. But it was different. All the clippings and note cards had disappeared from the corkboard. Bobby had a feeling that everything having to do with Public School #13 was gone.

He grabbed a sheaf of paper and started writing down everything he could remember.  
  
  
Chapter 2

Sam sat cross-legged beside the sigil painted on the floor, surrounded by a matching circle of open books, checking each one to make sure all was ready. He wished it could be Dean he was pulling out of hell, but he couldn’t do that yet. For one thing, Dean hadn’t been in hell long enough for his aura to be distinct enough to latch on to. Sam was pretty sure he could localize Dean well enough to send himself TO him, but that wouldn’t accomplish anything – he couldn’t bring them back out, and they’d probably both be too consumed by their torture to even recognize that they were together.

And that was the second problem: even if he could pull Dean out, there was the torture to be dealt with. Kinkaid’s notes suggested that even demons are still being tortured in hell – they’ve developed an ability to put it in the back of their minds, but it’s always there. No wonder they’re so nasty. And so eager to get to earth and as far from hell as possible. It added an extra degree of satisfaction to sending them back to hell. But if he brought Dean back, would the torture continue? Even if it stopped, what would be left of Dean’s sanity after having gone through it?

Then there was the question of the body. His spell would create one, or rather a facsimile of one, out of the aura of the soul within, but Sam had no idea what that would mean, and no control over what it would be like. Hopefully it would be shaped like the body he once had, but what effect would Dean’s self-image have on it? Would his torture in hell result in a mangled, corrupted body? Would his ego and smugness break through and make him taller than Sam and with a twelve-inch dick?

The left side of Sam’s mouth quirked up in a semi-grin at that thought. It was the closest thing to a smile that had crossed his face since Dean … since Dean was taken.

Sam shook the grin off his face. Back to work.

So Sam needed someone who had been in hell a long time, who had some resistance to the torture, who had some mental image of a body that was functional.

In short, a demon. But a demon that Sam had enough information on, enough artifacts from its former life, to be able to pinpoint in hell. Enough ties to a place on earth to be brought there.

Namely, Abel Kinkaid. It wasn’t definite, but Sam was pretty sure he had become a demon and had returned to earth. And this schoolhouse, with all of Kinkaid’s occult paraphernalia and writings, would be the place he was most drawn to.

It was time. Everything was in place to trigger all the necessary spells simultaneously. As he recited the incantations, black smoke began to swirl in his eyes, until they were all black. As he completed the spell his eyes flashed yellow before returning to normal.

The building shook as an amorphous form began to coalesce inside the sigil, shaking with the screams of a tortured soul that filled the room even before the body was formed. And when the body had formed, Sam wondered if he’d done something wrong, if his own mind had indeed had an effect on it. The body convulsing inside the circle was very familiar to him. He had burnt that body. The same day he’d burnt Dean’s.

As the screaming and convulsing subsided, Sam spoke to the new arrival.

“Abel?”

It spoke haltingly. “Not … my name … anymore.”

Sam drew in a deep breath.

“Ruby?”

  
  
Chapter 3

Ruby shivered as she pushed aside the weight of the torture in her mind and sat up inside the circle. She noted that Sam hadn’t offered her any clothing, and seemed impassive in the face of her signs of torment.

“Long time no see, Sam.”

“Longer for you than for me, if your notes are correct.”

“If I recall correctly, my estimate wasn’t bad. Right order of magnitude, at least. Of course, it’s hard to tell how much time is passing in hell, what with the torture, no sleep, and no sun.”

Sam nodded slowly as he fit the information into his analyses. “I imagine Lilith wasn’t too pleased with you when she got back to hell.”

“No, she wasn’t. I thought I’d seen everything hell had to offer, torture-wise, but she really broke new ground.” Ruby laughed. “And broke everything else. So why am I here, Sam? Surely not because you were concerned about what Lilith was doing to me.”

“No. Nothing personal.”

“You just don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone else when Dean is in trouble.” Ruby didn’t see any indication that the comment disturbed him at all. He simply continued.

“I can’t bring him out, but I can send you to him and bring you back.”

“What for? If you’re trying to send him a message, trust me, his mind is so wound up in his torture that he won’t notice anything else.” She chuckled. “Not even if I got to bring this hot bod with me.”

“Actually, I think you will. It’s only quasi-corporeal. It’s more a manifestation of your soul than a physical object.”

She noted his choice of words: object. Yet more evidence of how much he’d changed since he lost Dean.

“Just as well. It suits me better than Abel’s body did.” After a pause, she continued. “I didn’t do it, you know.”

“Do what?”

She tilted her head. “Surely you read the whole sordid tale. I didn’t molest my students. They didn’t need to accuse me of that – being gay was reason enough for them to end my teaching career and make me an outcast. But they had to go further and claim I took advantage of my students. That hurt more than anything else.”

Sam nodded. “But you did curse the town?”

Ruby laughed. “Yes, that I did do. They took away my livelihood, took away my community. So I did the same to them. But you’ll note I asked for a hurricane to destroy the harbor. I could have asked for it to kill everybody. Even after what they did to me, I didn’t want to hurt the kids. Not that it mattered when they came to collect on the deal. But that’s all water under the bridge.” She laughed again. “No pun intended.”

She tilted her head. “But you still haven’t explained what good it will do to send me to him.”

“Right. I’ve worked out a spell. If my theory is correct, I can cast it on your body, and it will travel back to hell with you.”

“A spell to do what?”

“To take on his torture. Give him a chance to think.”

“How generous of you. You did notice what I was like when you pulled me out, didn’t you? What do you think I’ll be like with an extra dollop of agony on top? Or do you even care?”

“That’s why I need to make you stronger.”

She watched as he rolled up his sleeve and picked up a knife. “You want me to drink your blood?”

“More to the point, Azazel’s blood. Plus some extra vitamins I’ve added to the mix.”

“I’m not going to …” Her voice trailed off as she realized she was walking towards him. “What the hell did you do to me?”

“It’s a geas.”

“So I have to do whatever you say?”

“Not exactly. I don’t know what might happen in hell, and I won’t be there to give you orders. You’re under a geas to help Dean.”

Her feet kept moving her towards him. “And to help him, I have to get stronger.” She considered whether she had any options. Finally she found one.

“Well then, we’re going to do it my way.” She lunged at him, knocking him to the floor.  
  
  
Chapter 4

“You can’t,” Sam stammered, “you can’t hurt me!”

“Who said I was trying to hurt you?” She laughed as she pulled down his jeans. “I need to drink my medicine, can’t avoid that. But there’s more than one way to do that.” She pulled out his cock. “So we’re doing it my way.” She took it into her mouth.

It didn’t take long for Sam to stop struggling. Before long he was thrusting, his hands wrapped around her head. She didn’t raise any objection. She’s a demon, he thought, doesn’t need to breathe. Or is it this body-facsimile that doesn’t need to breathe? When I bring him back, will Dean need to breathe?

It didn’t take her long to finish him. She made sure to drain him dry. Have to get the job done right, she thought. She could feel Azazel’s power filling her as she swallowed.

She sat up. “There now,” she said, wiping the last drops from her lips with a fingertip. Her eyes went yellow, then black. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? I’m all powered up. Do you need to test my grip strength?”

“No,” he stammered.” She was pleased to see he could still be flustered. Then his eyes went yellow, and his voice became rock steady. “I can see it in your aura. Task accomplished.”

Well, that was disappointingly brief, she thought. Here Azazel went to all that trouble to squeeze the humanity out of him, and all it takes is sending Dean to hell for Sam to do it on his own.

“So what’s the next trick, oh mighty wizard?”

He had prepared the ingredients beforehand and began mixing them in an iron bowl. “We perform the ritual to allow you to take on his torture.”

“And how exactly do I do that when I’m back in hell?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Souls don’t actually have a physical form in hell, but as I understand it, demons perceive them that way, right?”

“Yes, not that Dean will be perceiving anything but torture.”

“Judging by the way I was able to localize you in order to pull you out, you should arrive in his vicinity, whatever that means.”

“So I find him, then what?”

“Hopefully it’ll just be a matter of your body-projection touching his.”

“Right, I’ll figure it out. Don’t suppose I get any R&R before you send me back?”

“Didn’t you just take care of that?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Sam.” All right, she did enjoy it, but she certainly wasn’t admitting it. “While even the short time it takes a youngster like you to finish would be a full day in hell, a girl likes a night on the town. But I imagine this geas of yours will stop me from enjoying it while poor widdle Dean is suffering.”

He made no comment, just began the incantation. When he finished it, she felt an electric jolt like touching the third rail. It hurt like … well, not like hell, frankly, but about as bad as something could hurt, short of that. She winced and shivered, and found her feet already taking her back inside the circle.

“It’s been a barrel of laughs, Sam. You’re the life of the party.”

There was a flash of light, and she was gone. Sam went back to his books to work on the next step.  
  
  
Chapter 5

Ruby could feel the difference as soon as she arrived in hell. The special tortures Lilith had devised for her were there tugging at her, but she was able to push them aside. And other demons treated her … differently. They seemed to give her a wide berth without knowing why. They wouldn’t recognize her in any case – she was indeed wearing the body Sam had conjured for her, her last meat-suit, the one Lilith had driven her out of.

It didn’t take her long to find Dean – Sam had indeed sent her to the right part of hell, and the geas drew her towards him. She could hear him in her head. He was calling out for Sam, of course, no surprise there. Black emptiness all around him, nothing but a spider web of chains suspending him and hooks tearing at his flesh. Drama queen.

She approached him. Contrary to the image in his head, her image had him lying on solid ground. She knelt beside him and reached for him. He made no response when she touched him.

His screams echoing in her head were deafening. She pushed him as if trying to awaken him.

“Dean, listen to me. Focus on my voice.”

Nothing.

“Sam sent me. Do you hear me? Sam sent me.”

Still nothing.

Damned spell. Probably required some ritualistic nonsense to trigger it. Too bad she hadn’t had a chance to leaf through some fairy tales back in the schoolhouse. It had been a long time since she’d been a teacher.

“Oh well, Sleeping Beauty, I guess we might as well start with the obvious.”

She leaned over and kissed him. She felt a jolt of electricity race through her body, followed by every torture Dean was feeling. With the shock of it she let down her guard, and everything raced in, Dean’s tortures and her own. She doubled over, unable to see or hear through the pain.  
  
  
Chapter 6

Dean’s eyes snapped open. It was all gone – well, most of it, but he could think again. His senses gradually came back to him. He was lying on cold, hard stone. He could just make out some jagged outcroppings in the dim light. There were screams in the distance.

He slowly became aware of moaning nearby. He could make out a faint shape beside him, eventually coalescing into a naked woman, shaking and moaning. He wasn’t sure what to do. Finally he put a hand on her shoulder. Anything reassuring he thought of to say seemed ridiculous under the circumstances. In the end he just said, “hey, I’m Dean.”

“Give me … a minute.” She shuddered, then her ragged breathing became steadier. She turned to him. He began to make out her face.

“Oh, no way! You can’t be here. And I’ve seen your real face. You’re one ugly broad.”

“That’s because I used to be a guy, jackass. Thank your brother. It seems Sam and I both prefer this body.”

“Sam? Sam sent you?”

“You think I’d do this on my own? Sam would rather I get tortured than you. A parfit gentil knyght, your brother.”

“What? How?”

“He’s full of surprises. Couldn’t rescue you, so he pulled me out of hell, pumped me up with demon mojo, and sent me back with a spell to give you a reprieve.”

“How could he do all that?” Dean was already dreading the answer. “He’s not--”

“Taking a walk on the wild side? Oh, yes, and then some.”

“Dammit, I told him--”

“Well, you’re not there. The yellow-eyed bastard would be proud.”

“You’ve got to stop him.”

Ruby laughed. “Fat chance of that happening. You think he’d listen to me?”

“Tell him--”

“Tell him what? That you’re just fine and dandy in hell and he should stop trying to rescue you? Get serious.”

Dean didn’t know what to say. Before she’d taken away the pain he would have given anything to be rescued. “How – how bad is it?”

“What would be worse, black eyes or yellow ones? He’s shown both.”

“Oh, Sammy … “

“Face facts, Dean, there’s nothing either of us can do to stop him. He’s already made himself more powerful than most demons, and he’s not going to stop until he has a way to get you out. I don’t know what else he’s planning, but I’m sure he’ll pull me back out when he’s got it working.”

“And you have to do what he says?”

She chuckled. “Not exactly. I have to do what helps you. And don’t get any funny ideas.”

“Trust me, you’re not my type.”

“Bullshit. And time flows differently in hell. How long do you think it’s been? Years? Back on earth, it’s probably only a month or two. We could be here for years before he’s ready to pull me out. And who knows how long I can protect you from the torture? Sooner or later the extra power he gave me will fade and I’ll feel the full brunt of the pain, or the spell will wear off and you’ll be back in the web. And knowing you, Dean, I’ll bet you can resist torture longer than you can handle being alone with a naked chick with nothing else to do.”

“I spy with my little eye something beginning with--”

“Hell. Know any other party games?”  
  
  
Chapter 7

Sam finished reading “Partitur Apud Tormentis Gehenne” and placed it on the table. It had seemed promising, but he found nothing he needed, nothing worth scanning into his laptop. He knew it would be gone shortly, back in the Vatican Library he had pulled it from.

He’d been through most of the books in the schoolhouse and ended up with a long list of books he didn’t have. Fortunately, he was able to determine the general location of many of them. If the occult contents of a book were powerful enough, he was able to pinpoint it and bring it to him.

It was temporary, however. Once he had stopped focusing on a book, it had a tendency to return from whence it came. Sam had to rely on his notes or scanned pages if he couldn’t memorize what he needed.

Ironically, most of the books he needed were in Bobby’s library. Sam had a semi-permanent conduit between the schoolhouse and Bobby’s place. Bobby had undoubtedly discovered his books disappearing and reappearing and figured out Sam was behind it, but it didn’t matter – Bobby already knew Sam was using demonic power, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He knew Sam was trying to rescue Dean, so the books Sam was using wouldn’t tell him much, not enough for Bobby to guess what Sam would want next and try to block him from getting it.

The librarian at the Vatican was probably quite confused at the unseen visitor who kept taking books and then leaving them on the floor somewhere. There’s nothing a librarian hates more than someone who won’t return books to be properly reshelved.

Sam had two pieces of the puzzle mostly worked out, but the third solution was being frustratingly elusive.

He had successfully located Ruby’s soul and retrieved it from hell. Locating Dean was more difficult, but Sam was gradually finding more and more ways to refine the procedure. Maybe he could lock onto Ruby and bring them both out at once. He was confident he would eventually find a solution.

He had also manufactured a physical body for Ruby. It wasn’t quite a real body, but it seemed to function well enough. She didn’t move awkwardly or have trouble getting used to it, and it wasn’t disfigured or corrupted by her torture in hell. Dean’s streak of self hatred might cause problems, but it wasn’t anything about his body that he hated, and Dean also had a pretty big ego. His research and experiments led him to believe that the body was permanent and wouldn’t just fade away or break down. He had more to learn about how the body functioned – just because a demon could wear it didn’t mean it would work for Dean – but he had more research and experimentation planned. If he had to, he could experiment on Ruby for an extended period to fill in all the gray areas.

But the third part was trickier. Ruby had confirmed that demons still feel their souls being tortured. They’ve learned how to focus on other things, but the torture continues. Distance from hell lessens it, but even if they’re on earth, it’s still there gnawing at them. Dean can’t do that, and leaving him in hell until he learns how to do it and becomes a demon isn’t an acceptable answer. The reprieve Sam had empowered Ruby to give him wouldn’t last – neither the Azazel-power nor the spell to transfer Dean’s pain to her were permanent, and nothing he had read had yielded any way to change that. Besides, even if the torture could be stopped, what would the memory of subjective years of agony do to Dean? Would he be insane? Catatonic?

Clearly, the connection to hell had to be severed, and his memories of the torture had to be erased. Despite some tantalizing hints, he hadn’t found any way to do either.

Until he came across this passage: In scintillam vitae Et in flammis inferni tenetur in unum

There was an artifact with the power to bind together and to tear apart the connection between the physical and the metaphysical planes. Now all Sam needed to do was figure out what it was and how to get hold of it.

Now he had a trailhead. He just needed to follow it.

  
  
  
Chapter 8

Ruby was sitting with her arms wrapped around her chest, rocking slowly and whimpering.

“It’s wearing off?” Dean asked.

“No shit, Sherlock. But congratulations – I can still hold on to your torture, and thanks to your brother’s geas I couldn’t stop even if I knew how.”

Dean frowned. “What can I do?”

“Write a letter to the editor? Unless you’ve suddenly developed magic powers you can’t do anything.” Ruby tilted her head to one side and considered. “Hmm, maybe you do have super powers. Distract me.”

“Like, tell you a story?”

“No, you idiot. You’re supposed to be good in bed. Can you make a girl forget the world and focus on your fantastic technique?”

“You want me to--”

“Yes! Congratulations, I gave in first. Now do something before the torture gets worse.”

He wrapped his arms around her and began kissing her neck, laying her down on the unfortunately unyielding stone. He began teasing her nipple with his left hand and stroking her thigh with his right. Getting a positive reaction, he trailed his kisses down to her collarbone, then to her other nipple.

Okay, Ruby thought, I’m sure human women appreciate your gentle touch, but that’s not what I need.

“Dean, I’m a demon and I’m being tortured. Don’t be gentle, give me something captivating.”

She was gratified to discover he had some good tricks, scratching and squeezing and biting at her nipples in ways that actually felt good. That’s better, something I can focus on.

She was distracted enough that he managed to throw in some surprises, which were deliciously attention-grabbing. She wasn’t consciously aware that he had spread her legs until he slipped two fingers inside her.

“Yes, like that! Fast and deep!”

A few minutes later, he caught her by surprise again. She hadn’t realized his mouth had left her breast until he began licking her clit. Oh, he knew how to do that right. He was really good at it. Squirming with pleasure sure beat trembling with pain. He kept going until she stopped him.

“Fingers aren’t long enough, fuck me!”

He was also good at shifting position without breaking the flow. He thrust into her, hard and deep, just right. He knew some tricks for getting deeper penetration while also squeezing her more tightly around him.

“Oh fuck yeah, like that!”

Her orgasm was far better than she had expected, and he eased off a bit, just enough to let her excitement build again without letting her cool down too much. He brought her to climax three more times before she felt sated, focused on the afterglow to the exclusion of everything else.

“Okay, I admit it, you do have super powers.”

  
  
  
Chapter 9

A small bell rang, and Bobby closed the book and headed for the back room. He had painted a devil’s trap on the floor where the books were reappearing, and sure enough another one had just dropped out of nowhere.

None of his warning sigils were glowing, so he entered the circle and picked up the book. It was titled “tewaitohu ki nga mura o te whakaaro”.

“Dammit Sam, Maori?”

He tried to recall what he knew of Maori while he searched for a dictionary. “Whakaaro is thought or idea. Mura is fire or glow. I know tewaitohu sounds familiar. Tohu is a symbol. Waitohu is to predict.”

He lined up the books on the table. Books about hell, about souls, it was obvious why Sam wanted those. But the others? Golems, auras, one about fishing, another about Cambodian armor? Were those failed ideas he had tried? Or did they all fit together somehow? And what the hell was the Maori book about?

What was Sam trying to do?

  
  
  
Chapter 10

Dean didn’t know what else he could do. Sometimes Ruby became perfectly still; other times she convulsed like she was about to cough up a lung. Either way, she was completely unresponsive to anything Dean did. He knew she was a demon, but she had helped them back on earth, and she was apparently compelled to take on his torture as well as her own. She was still doing it – no matter how much she was suffering, he wasn’t feeling any of it.

What are you up to, Sam? Did you think it would last longer? From what Ruby had told him, even though it felt like a year or two had passed since she arrived, it might only be a week on earth. But it had been months since she’d responded to anything he said or did. If Sam wasn’t going to bring her out until he was ready for the next stage of his plan, whatever that might be, who knows how long that might be? If he hit a snag in his research and it took an extra day to unravel it, it would mean months of torture for her.

Come on, Sam, do something. Don’t leave us hanging like this.

Suddenly he felt his arms and legs being pulled out as if he was going to be torn apart. He could see Ruby fading away as the meat hooks came towards him.  
  
  
Chapter 11

Sam waited patiently for Ruby to shrug off the torture. Now that she wasn’t near him, Dean’s torment would have returned to him, and she had managed to push aside her own torture when he had brought her out of hell the first time.

As her breathing steadied, she said, “It wore off, Sam. I need another power boost.”

“Shall we do it your way?”

It took ten or fifteen seconds for her to gather the strength to snark at him. “Like you don’t enjoy it, smartass.”

She crawled towards him; apparently that was easier than trying to stand up. He pulled down his jeans. She wasted no time, wanting to finish him as quickly as possible, taking his entire length in right away.

She pulled back, coughing and sputtering. “What the hell did you do to me?”

“I’ve been refining the body-creation spell, making it more realistic.”

“So I have to breathe now? A little warning would have been nice, you bastard. I did do this back when I was human, you know. Do you get off on a little sadism?”

Actually, she was hoping he did. Anything to finish him off more quickly. She took him in her mouth again, and when she stopped to take a breath she embellished it with some gasping sounds. His cock responded positively to the sounds. She took advantage of it to finish him fast, feeling stronger as she swallowed each spurt.

She sat back on her haunches and let out a long breath. “That’s better. So am I going back to Dean now, or do you have another fun experiment planned?”

He held out a book for her to see. “”Can you read this?”

As soon as her eyes fell on the book it burst into flames.

“Apparently not,” he said. “I’ll read it to you.”

As he began to read his voice became distorted, and a loud, painful ringing filled her ears. When he saw her cover her ears with her hands he stopped.

“There is a pair of enchanted gauntlets hidden in hell. The catch is, no demon can read or hear how to find them, and no human can focus on anything but their torture.”

She caught on right away. “Except Dean, when I take on his torture.”

“Exactly. They are called the Gauntlet of Tearing Asunder and the Gauntlet of Holding Fast. The first one will allow me to break the connection between hell and Dean’s soul, so that when he’s back on earth the torment will stop. It can even tear away his memories of his time in hell.”

“And what’s the other one for?”

“So that I can hold Lilith inside the body she’s possessed, so I can kill her.”

“Sounds good to me. So how do I bring the instructions to Dean?”

“Like this.” He snapped his fingers, and Ruby doubled over in agony. Flaming letters had appeared all over her skin, burning into her flesh. Even with Azazel’s blood, she couldn’t block out the pain.

“You son of a bitch.”

“They’ll stop burning when Dean reads them.” He completed the incantation to send her back to hell.  
  
  
Chapter 12

Even when back in hell Ruby was able to push aside the torture, but not the pain from the burning letters. She figured even Azazel was subject to the curse on the gauntlets. She headed for Dean and wasted no time grabbing him and kissing him.

He exhaled a long breath and opened his eyes. “What in hell did Sam do to you?”

“Just read the damned instructions.”

As Dean read them the flames died out, leaving behind charred skin. “He wants to use cursed gauntlets from hell?”

“They’re only cursed against demons, and he was able to read the book, so he’s not a demon.”

“Not yet,” Dean replied glumly. He thought about what to do as he led Ruby to the gauntlets. Sam was going down a very bad path, and based on what he’d already done he was pretty far gone already. Dean went to hell to keep Sam from dying. Was he going to have to stay in hell to save Sam from something worse?

The gauntlets didn’t look like anything special – Dean had gloves for working on the car that seemed more impressive. “Can you even touch them?”

“I think the curse was just on the instructions. Either that, or Sam didn’t care.”

“Wait, we can’t let Sam do this.”

“So what do we do? Stay in hell until we’re both feeling the torture?”

“If the gauntlets can break my ties to hell and erase my memories, maybe they can do the same to Sam? Break the effects of Azazel’s blood and erase his memories of all this?”

“Maybe, if I can figure out how to use them and catch him by surprise, which doesn’t seem likely. Besides, that will leave you here, being tortured.”

“I sold my soul to save Sam. I’ll do it again. And you’ll be back on earth. He can’t send you back if he forgets everything.” Look at me, Dean thought, worrying about whether a demon gets sent back to hell.

“You’ll change your mind when the torture returns.”

“Maybe I will, but my mind is clear now. I’m not letting Sam do this.”

“What if the geas won’t let me stop him? Once I’m back on earth, you’ll be feeling the torture. If I can’t do it, he gets the gauntlets.”

“Damned geas.” Dean considered. “Where’d he find out about all this, anyway? Was all this know-how sitting in the schoolhouse all this time?”

“I doubt it. I read everything I collected. The things Sam is doing go way beyond anything I had. Back when I was human I would have been able to read about the gauntlets. My memory may not be perfect, but I think I would have remembered it when he brought them up.”

“So he’s been doing more research. You told me he had dozens of books scattered around when he summoned you. He must be getting them somewhere.” He thought some more. “We can’t be sure how long we’ve been here, but given the time difference it can’t have been more than a week or two back on earth. From what you’ve said, he didn’t have everything ready the first time he brought you out.”

“He definitely sounded like he was still working on it. I know he added more refinements to the spell to create a body.”

“That’s a lot of research. He couldn’t be running around to different places gathering up books. We’re always finding something in one book that references a book that’s thousands of miles away.”

“He must be using his powers to bring books to him.”

“That’s got to be hard. He knows I’m in hell but he hasn’t figured out how to pinpoint me yet. Finding a specific book in some library he’s never seen, even a book that’s chock-full of sorcery, among all the other books, that can’t be easy.”

“So he’s probably getting most of them from places he’s seen.”

“The biggest occult library we’ve seen is Bobby’s. He never let us touch them when we were kids, but I know Sam memorized all the titles he saw. He used to tell me about them, wondering what was in them. But Bobby wouldn’t let him take them if he knew what Sam was doing, and he’s got to have tried to check in on him. He must know something bad is going on.”

“Unless Sam’s done something to him.”

Dean hoped not. Bobby was like a second dad to them, when John was away. Could Sam be that far gone already?

“He must be summoning the books to him, or teleporting there and back,” Dean mused. “Doing that over and over again would leave some sort of connection. Sam would probably make it permanent, to avoid having to cast some spell over and over again.”

“I guess so.”

“You’ve got to get to Bobby, give him the gauntlets.”

“How am I supposed to do that? I’m stuck here until Sam pulls me out, and I end up at the schoolhouse.”

“The geas keeps bringing you to me. You’ve got to help me, and to do that you have to get to Bobby. Listen up, geas, there must be some connection between the schoolhouse and Bobby’s library. When Sam summons Ruby, bring her to Bobby.”

“You’re talking to a spell now?”

“Unless I come up with a better plan, I damned well am.”  
  
  
Chapter 13

Bobby stared at the warning sigil. “A demon? Sam Winchester sent me a demon?”

He prepped his weapons as the figure appeared inside the devil’s trap. The burnt skin took him aback. Were those some kind of symbols? Letters?

Then it clicked. “Tewaitohu ki nga mura o te whakaaro”. Writing with flames of thought? Branding with thoughts?

Then the demon turned towards him.

“Oh, for crying out loud! What is wrong with you boys? Every time I turn around you’re resurrecting someone.”

Ruby looked around, confused not to be in the schoolhouse. “Well, I’ll be damned, Dean did it.”

“Boats already sailed on that one. What did Dean do?”

“He … Sam cast a geas on me to help Dean. He sent us to retrieve these gauntlets.”

“Gauntlets?” More of the books Sam had borrowed began to make sense. “Not the Gauntlets of Holding Fast and Tearing Asunder?”

She stared at him curiously. “No wonder Dean thinks you know everything. Sam wanted the gauntlets to break Dean’s soul free of hell and erase his memories of being tortured. Dean ordered the geas to bring me to you instead. Apparently it worked.”

“To me? What does he want me to do with them?”

“Tear the demon power out of Sam and erase his memories so he can’t repeat it.”

“So this is another Winchester hobby, messing with peoples’ minds?”

“Got any better ideas? You do realize how far off the rails Sam has gone, don’t you? Anyway, we don’t have much time before he realizes something is amiss and summons me back to the schoolhouse.”

Bobby rubbed his forehead. “Okay, give me the Gauntlet of Tearing Asunder. I’ll think of something. Keep the Gauntlet of Holding Fast. Here’s what I want you to do …”

  
  
  
Chapter 14

Sam paced around the sigil, wondering what was taking so long. Based on his calculations, they should have located the gauntlets by now. Was there more to it than the directions he’d burnt into Ruby’s skin? Was his plan permanently derailed?

Finally she appeared. As she shook off the torture and regained her bearings, Sam observed something was missing.

“You only have one gauntlet.”

She replied with a broken laugh. “I’m just peachy, Sam, thanks for asking. Let me get my balance and I’ll explain.”

He helped her get to her feet. She leaned against him as her ragged breathing returned to normal. Then she grabbed his left wrist, hoping he couldn’t break the gauntlet’s hold while she used it to drag them both back to Bobby’s.

Sam grabbed Bobby’s arm with his right hand before Bobby could touch him with the gauntlet. He lifted Ruby off her feet trying to shake off her grip, but the gauntlet held firm as she dangled from his arm.

Sam’s eyes turned yellow as he chanted softly. Ruby’s body began to dissolve, like a digital image pixelating and then disappearing, starting at her feet and ending at the hand inside the gauntlet, until nothing was left but the gauntlet and black smoke. Sam tossed his head and the gauntlet released its grip on his wrist and flew onto his hand.

He turned his attention back to Bobby, grabbing Bobby’s gloved hand with his own.

“Don’t try to stop me, Bobby. I need to bring back Dean. I need to set things right, the way they’re supposed to be.”

“The way things are supposed to be is for you to be the good man you used to be, not the monster you’re becoming.”

The gloves glowed with a searing yellow light and then exploded.

  
  
  
Chapter 15

Sam woke with blurry vision and a throbbing headache. Once his vision started to clear he recognized the room instantly and looked for Bobby, who was next to him, trying to get up and obviously in a similar groggy state.

“Bobby, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Sam, I’m okay, except for the guy in steel-toed boots kicking me in the head. How about you?”

“The same. What happened?”

Bobby tried to focus on the corkboard on the wall. It was empty. “Damned if I know. Something happened, that’s for sure.”

Sam followed Bobby’s gaze. “Any idea what you were working on?”

“Not a clue. Once I can stand up I’ll check my notes and backups.”

Sam’s face fell as his memory came back. “You weren’t…?”

“Sam, we’ve been over this. I hate it as much as you do, but he’s gone.”

“I know, Bobby. And you’re going to tell me not to do anything stupid. But I’ve already tried all the stupid things you told me not to, and they didn’t work anyway. I’d give anything to get him back, but they won’t take it. Not the crossroad demons, not the tricksters. No one.”

Bobby half-crawled closer to put an arm around him. “Well, I’m not gonna tell you you’ll get over it. I haven’t got over things I lost before you were born. You just keep on living with it.”

“But I shouldn’t even be living. He’s in hell because of me.”

“You can’t undo the damn-fool deal he made by doing something stupider. The two of you will just get dug in deeper if you keep trying to out-stupid each other.”

“He’s in hell, Bobby. How can it get deeper than that?”

“You boys will find a way.”

Sam buried his face in Bobby’s shoulder. “I can’t, Bobby,” he sobbed, “I can’t do it without him.”

“You will, kid. He shouldn’t have done it, but what’s done is done. You’ll go on, because he did it so you could.”

“Do as I say, not as I do?”

“Best advice there is, even if the giver won’t follow his own advice.”

“And that’s it? That’s all there is?”

“I knew a hunter out east named O’Neill, lived on one of those barrier islands off the mainland. He became a hunter after a selkie took his sister. He used to say that hunters were like those islands, silt left behind by the glaciers. One day they’re part of the mainland, and then a freak storm washes half of them away, and suddenly they’re islands. Maybe they’re lucky and part of a chain of islands, then another freak storm and they’re alone. Some hunters are born into a family, but some are just ordinary Joes, living a normal life, until a storm tears their life apart. If they’re lucky they’ve got a partner to share the life. Maybe they dream that one day they’ll be part of the normal world again, but they know deep down it probably ain’t gonna happen. They know they’ll keep losing their hunter buddies, until the day comes that their buddies are the ones mourning over losing them. It’s a miserable life, but they keep doing it, so that those folks that are still part of the mainland don’t get hit by a freak storm.”

Sam let it sink in for a minute, then nodded slowly. “Just pretend it’s a normal day, because none of our days are normal. Burn the body, drink to the fallen, then get back to work.”

  
  
  
Chapter 16

_“So all of 'em – every damn demon – they were all human once?”_

_“Every one I've ever met.”_

“Miss? Your key?”

Ruby snapped out of her reverie. “Yes, right. Fifth door on the right?”

“That’s right. Do you need help with your bags?”

“I’m traveling light.” She took the key and headed down the hall.

_“The answer is yes, by the way.”_

_“I'm sorry?”_

_“Yes, the same thing will happen to you. It might take centuries, but sooner or later Hell will burn away your humanity. Every Hell-bound soul, every one, turns into something else. Turns you into us. So yeah. Yeah, you can count on it.”_

She opened the door and entered the room, closing the door behind her. She didn’t bother with the lock – it would be useless against anything Lilith sent after her. She arranged the spell bags carefully and began painting warding sigils on the walls.

_“Why are you telling me all this?“_

_“I need your help.”_

_“Help with what?”_

_“With Sam. The way you stuck that demon tonight – it was pretty tough. Sam's almost there, but not quite. You need to help me get him ready – for life without you. To fight this war on his own.”_

Yeah, that was a bust. All that power wouldn’t help any if he lost his humanity. And now Dean was gone, and she couldn’t help Sam any further. Lilith would find her in an instant if she tried.

She spent the next several hours reading the ley lines again. Whatever happened after Sam destroyed the body he’d created for her seems to have worked. He wasn’t trying to summon her back, hadn’t returned to the schoolhouse, wasn’t using demon mojo at all. Both he and Bobby were still alive.

So he had his humanity back. Score one for Dean. But now what? He’s still not ready. Who’s going to get him ready? Bobby? She had no clue if Bobby even knew how.

_“Ruby! Why do you want us to win?”_

_“Isn't it obvious? I'm not like them. I don't know why. I – I wish I was, but ... I'm not. I remember what it's like.”_

_“What what's like?”_

_“Being human.”_


End file.
